Friday, July 18, 2014

I learned last week that as recently as the Civil War, the Great Sphinx of Giza in Egypt lay covered in sands mostly up to its neck. Google images of the Sphinx, and you see that today it sits battered by time, but fully revealed. The famous Egyptian headdress framing an ancient king’s visage; the body of a lean lion resting, waiting; gaping holes of where its nose and beard once were chiseled (and no, that vandalism wasn’t Napoleon’s doing). The interwebs also share grainy photos of its “recent” excavation in the 1870s and 1920s. To think that were I to have lived but 150 years ago, I could have visited this iconic sculpture, and found it mostly buried!

Apparently, that’s been a reoccurring phenomenon in the long life of the Sphinx. Egyptians, Romans, Arabs and others who over the millennia held political control in that territory, found this monument and its nearby great pyramids sometimes gleaming, sometimes neglected. Initial excavations occurred in antiquity. Then more happened centuries later. And again. “How long does that cycle extend,” you might ask. I did, and found the answer: approximately 4,500 years. Looks pretty good for that age, I’d say.

Here’s some perspective on that timeline. Around when Moses led a band of slaves out of Egypt into the Sinai wilderness, the Sphinx had lain unmoving, for nearly 1,300 years. That’s roughly the distance between us and Charlemagne, long ago dubbed the “Father of Western Europe.” Islam had barely begun 1,300 years ago. Christianity was enduring adolescence. We live closer to Jesus than he did to the Sphinx’c construction, by over 500 years. That big statue - and I’m talking ¾-quarters-a-football-field-long BIG- is of considerable age, and endurance.

The guy who built it- King Khafra- probably included it in his funeral preparations. Ancient Egyptian Kings cared a LOT about funerals and burial, as the pyramids and their temples reveal. It was part of their religious observance. They believed that life continued long after a person “passed into the west”, i.e. died. Kings could ease and enhance that passing by preparing monuments, where priests offered worship decades beyond their death. These tombs and temples also had the useful effect of providing jobs, while overawing the populace. Religion, economics, politics and culture intertwined, birthing such incredible creations like the Sphinx.

And again, that was over 4,500 years ago, though religion continues to function in similar ways still. Google Basilica of Sagrada Familia, and you’ll see a provocative neo-Gothic cathedral rising above Barcelona, beautiful and unfinished. Google Wat Rong Khun, and you’ll see a dreamlike, snow-white Buddhist Temple in Thailand, boasting images from the movie The Matrix inside. The economics of religion remain powerful, guiding charity to Pakistani disaster victims, guiding funding to Pakistani terrorists. Ask Iranian officials, or American civil rights demonstrators whether religion still impacts politics, and they’ll both say yes.

Which isn’t, of course, to put terror-cheering mullahs and charity-loving activists on the same moral plane! It’s simply an observation that religion has deep roots in human civilization- for better and for worse- or as Ecclesiastes says, “There’s nothing new under the sun.” And ultimately, the Sphinx’s long life reminds me that whenever Christians or Muslims or whomever claims that “Their religion is best,” that only they have received “God’s truth,” they’re missing a BIG part of the story. If a millennium passed from the building of incredible religious monuments in Egypt to the first flowerings of Ancient Israel and biblical culture, then either a) God was doing something creative before our religion began, or b) God didn’t yet care about humanity. B) sounds unlikely to me. A), however, gives me hope and a sense of wonder. If God could inspire such majestic acts of worship and awe in near-prehistoric civilizations, in people with much less knowledge or power than we, then just imagine what God could do next…with us! If we’re open to it, at least, if we expect that from our religious devotion will emerge creativity and love, not division and fear. Then, millennia from now, will our heirs see in what we leave behind ancient wonders of grandeur? I hope so.